New $40 Million Investment for World Vision’s Water Program!

Today, Dave and Dana Dornsife are announcing a $40 million investment in World Vision’s water, sanitation and hygiene program in 24 African countries (LINK). This brings their total investment in World Vision to $115 million, following an investment of $35 million in 2011 and $40 million in 2016. Their contributions have all been focused on World Vision’s water programs, making them the leading family in the world investing in providing clean water access.

“We invest with World Vision because we see their impact on people’s lives. They are accountable for their work and they focus on helping the poor,” said Dave Dornsife. “We travel every year to Africa to inspect the work and meet their capable field staff. We trust World Vision.”

“To encourage others to join us, our requirement is that every dollar we donate is matched by other donors,” said Dana Dornsife. “World Vision’s water, sanitation and hygiene program empowers women and girls and is the basis for good development so communities can lift themselves out of poverty.”

“With their total investment of more than $115 million, the Dornsifes have been foundational for World Vision becoming the largest nongovernmental provider of clean drinking water on the planet, reaching one new person with clean drinking water every 10 seconds,” said Edgar Sandoval Sr., President of World Vision U.S. “We thank God for their generosity.”

“Motivated by Christ’s example of loving the poor, we are committed to reaching everyone everywhere we work with clean, life-giving drinking water by 2030. That represents approximately 50 million people between 2016 and 2030. This investment by the Dornsifes takes us closer to making that commitment a reality.”

2019 Annual Results Show Tremendous Impact

We are pleased to share the impact of World Vision’s 2019 Global Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene (WASH) Program. It’s been a year of tremendous impact for the most vulnerable, and we continue to learn and improve our efforts to ensure quality and sustainability. World Vision exceeded our yearly targets by reaching 3.4 million people with sustainable clean water, 2.6 million people with household sanitation, and 4.3 million people with hygiene behavior change promotion efforts. We also reached an additional 900,000 people with clean water during emergency situations.

We are on track to achieve our interim goal of reaching 20 million people with clean water between 2016 and 2020, having reached 16.1 million people in the first four years of our commitment. These commitments and our progress toward achieving them would not be possible without the support of our donors and partners.

During this reporting period, World Vision made a new commitment to reach 800 rural healthcare facilities with WASH services between 2019 and 2021, serving approximately 7.2 million people. This work is critical to ensuring a positive birthing experience for mothers and newborns, reducing healthcare associated infections, and addressing antimicrobial resistance. It’s saving lives. World Vision’s leadership in both implementation and advocacy has played a significant role in bringing more resources to this effort. During our first year of this commitment, we are ahead of schedule reaching 399 healthcare facilities.

We continue to innovate and scale-up proven approaches to positively impact behavior change to ensure improved sanitation, hygiene, and water quality. For example, World Vision reached more than 800,000 children by providing hygiene in schools and reached 6,307 faith leaders so they can encourage their congregations to adopt healthy WASH behaviors. World Vision continues to scale-up our work to provide more sustainable and cost-effective alternatives to hand-pumps including providing solar-powered piped-water systems. Our work with Grundfos to provide automated kiosks with these solar-powered systems is proving to be an effective way to collect fees for ongoing operation and maintenance as well as 24/7 water access, so we are expanding the automated kiosks beyond Kenya. World Vision is innovating by starting to provide communities with access to affordable insurance to cover the solar-powered systems while breakdowns are rare, they will be more expensive to repair than hand pumps. We’ve started this insurance initiative in Kenya and Zambia.

During the next six months, World Vision will develop a new five-year plan that will cover our work through 2025 and prepare to celebrate providing 20 million people with access to clean water.

We are thankful to our donors for being part of this journey with us. Together, we are transforming millions of lives.

Upcoming Events Focused on Women and Water 

1. March 12: UN Commission on the Status of Women in New York City - World Vision and Huru International Host a Special session on Menstrual Hygiene Management
   
2. March 18 Webinar: World Vision Hosts Webinar on Women and Water

Please contact your World Vision representative if you'd like to attend either event, or email Julie Stanfill at jstanfil@worldvision.org. 

Prayer Requests

• Give praise for the faithfulness of the Dornsife family.
• Give thanks for our progress while helping keep mindful that there are still hundreds of millions of people who are suffering because of unsafe water, poor sanitation and hygiene.
• Give discernment to our teams as we prepare our next five-year business plan and help us create a plan that is honoring to God.